“Local officials quoted by Iranian media said that this and other attacks around the city of Lamerd killed at least 21 people,” the NYT wrote, adding that it had verified videos of the two attacks and footage of their aftermath with weapons experts. According to Iranian journalist Negrin Bageríová, among the victims are girls aged around 10 who were in the affected sports hall for volleyball training. Iranian media later also published photos of injured children, stating that there were around a hundred wounded.
According to their conclusions, the characteristics of the weapon used, the explosion and damage correspond to a short-range ballistic missile called the Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM, which is designed to detonate just above the target and fire small tungsten pellets.
According to the newspaper, the use of this weapon in Lamerda was also confirmed by an American official who did not wish to be named. According to the Pentagon, testing of the PrSM prototype was completed only last year. At the beginning of March, the American administration boasted that it was used for the first time in strikes against Iran. “I couldn’t be more proud of our men and women in uniform who use innovation to create dilemmas for the enemy,” CENTCOM regional military command quoted US Vice Admiral Brad Cooper as saying at the time.
Another affected school next to the base
“Video of one hit in a residential area about 900 feet (approx. 270 meters) from the sports hall and school shows the weapon in flight with a distinctive silhouette consistent with a PrSM. The missile explodes in the air in a large fireball. Another video, taken by a security camera directly across from the sports hall, shows the hit of the hall and the adjacent school. The video does not capture the incoming missile, but it clearly shows the explosion just above the building. Photos of the aftermath show that both locations were marked holes, apparently from tungsten bullets,” the NYT describes.
They add that the attacks took place on February 28, the first day of the current conflict, when a girls’ primary school in the southern Iranian city of Mináb was also hit, where, according to local authorities, 175 people were killed. After the initial attempt to blame Iran for the attack, the American administration began to admit under the weight of evidence that the school could have been hit by an American missile. The school in Mináb was located very close to the base of the Revolutionary Guards. This was also the case of the school in the city of Lamerd.
“Right next to the sports hall is the complex of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. It is not known whether it was also hit in the attack,” the letter says, adding that according to archival satellite images, the school and the sports hall have been separated from the Guards complex by a wall for at least 15 years.
“Given that this is such a new weapon, it is more difficult to assess whether the PrSM attacks in Lamerda were intentional, whether they stemmed from a design or manufacturing defect, or whether they were the result of incorrect target selection,” adds the newspaper.
